Improved metallic roof



t UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

VILLIAM E. VORTHEN, OF NEV YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVED METALLIC ROOF.

Specication forming part of Letters Patent No. l6,767, dated March 3,i857.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM E. WORTIIEN, civil and mechanical engineer,of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new andImproved Metallic Roof; and I do hereby declare that the followingspecification, taken in connection with the drawings, is a full, clear,and exact description thereof.

In the drawings, Figure -1 is a perspective view of a section or portionof a roof. Fig. 2 is a plan of the under side thereof. Fig. 3 is a sideelevation; and Fig. Ll is a detail on a large scale, being a sectionthrough a rafter and part of the covering between the rafters.

Roofs composed as far as the covering is concerned wholly of metal arenow in ordinary use in a great variety of forms, and in some of thesethe framing supporting the covering is also of metal. There are alsoother roofs now in use in which the covering supports itself without theaid ot beams or framing. The latter class are generally of small spanand are constituted of corrugated metal bent into'the form of an arch.Such roofs have many advantages, cheapness, lightness, and saving ofspace, as there are no beams in the way, being the chief; butl they havenot been applied to large spans, chiey for two reasons: first, that itis almost impossible by any known process to corrugate metal to asuftlcient depth to make an arch suiciently strong, and, second, that ifthey could be so constructed there would be so much metal used that theywould be of great cost.

Now the object of my invention is to make a roof that shall unite thecheapness and other advantages of the corrugated roofs with a facilityof application to large spans; and the nature of my invention consistsin combining together hollow metallic beams which themselves act ascovering with and by means of metallic plates which are supported bysaid beams and constitute the remaining portion of the covering of aroof, the whole substantially in the manner hereinafter specified.

In order to make a roof after my plan, I take sheet Inetal of suitablestrength and by any usual means bend it into beams having a section muchlike the ordinary U railroadrail. joined together at their ends, so asto form a single beam of sufficient length, and a number of such beamsmay then be laid from wall to wall of the building to be covered, andthey may, according to the nature and necessities of the case, be eitherarched, dat, or inclined, or so attached as to constitute ordinarypeaked rafters. Other arched metallic plates are then taken and rivetedfrom the flange of one rafter to the flange of the next rafter insuccession, and these latter plates are either arched or arched andcorrugated, so that they Inay have sufficient strength. I

In the drawings the beams are represented at ad and their langesat Z) h,while the plates between them are shown at c c.

In cases where the arched or ordinary peaked form of roof is employed itwill be well to use tie-rods such as are shown at d d, and if very largebeams are required they maybe made of several pieces properly attachedinstead of being bent into shape from a single piece.

Now it is a well-known fact that the strength of beams of a given spanincreases in a greater ratio than their depth, and that therefore aquantity of iron of any given lengt-h and breadth will sustain a greaterload when formed into a single U-shaped beam than it will if bent so asto make two U-shaped beams lying side by side, and ordinary corrugatediron maybe considered as Inade up of a'number of U-beams lying side` byside and joined by their langes. This principle is the starting-point ofIny invention; but in order to carry it fully iuto'effeot in economizingmaterial I make the beam itself apart of the roof-covering and arch orcorrugate the covering-plates attached to and connecting the beams. Inthis manner the coveringplates constitute a series of little roofs lyingbetween the U-beams, and these little roofs of small span may be made ofvery thin metal. In case these plates are corrugated their corrugationsmust run at right angles to the general direction of the Inain beams, ornearly so, in order to attain strength, and in that ease the U-beamsserve also as eaves-troughs for each of these little or sub roofs, andde- A number of such beams may then be 2 lens? liver the water at theWalls of the building. The beams serve this same purpose also when thesub-roofs are merely arched.

I intend at times to invert the U-beams, in which case the sides ofthebeam and the first part of the spring of the arch will make thewater-conductors; but such a plan is not as good as that shown on thedrawings, as there will be greater risk of leakage at the joints.

Now I think that it needs no dem0nstra-- tion to prove that a roofconstructed after my plan will be both light and comparativelyinexpensive. An inspection of the drawings will show that almost everyportion of the metallic surface is utilized, and in an eXperimental roofon alarge scale already built the practical advantages realized are suchas are herein set forth.

WV. E. \VORTHEN.

In presence of- B. AL'rHoUsE, A. L. DU PUGET.

